News Blog: Major transportation improvements coming to East Portland through PBOT's East Portland Access to Employment and Education Project

While Portland Bureau of Transportation crews jump into the 2018 construction season, the planning and design of future projects continues as the bureau looks toward 2019. One such project is the East Portland Access to Employment & Education (EPAEE) project.

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News Blog: Open Now: Central City in Motion online open house launches today

The Central City in Motion project's first online open house uses an interactive mapping tool to let visitors identify and comment on priorities and challenges specific to pedestrian crossings, potential bikeways, and transit priority improvements.

(March 19, 2018) We want to hear from anyone who lives, works or visits Portland's Central City. Do you visit on the weekends? Are you a swing-shift commuter? Do you run, walk, bike or roll through the Central City on your way to Waterfront Park or the Eastside Esplanade? Do you take the Streetcar to visit the Art Museum once a month? Do you ride the bus every morning to your workplace downtown? Your feedback and ideas from the online open house will help PBOT's Central City in Motion project team better understand community needs and interests and identify projects to include in the plan.

Join us in our first online open house to learn more about the project and to share your thoughts on the proposed improvements, including pedestrian crossings and ADA-compliant ramps, transit priority improvements, and a functional low-stress bike network. A total of three online open houses will be used to better understand the challenges and opportunities for multimodal investments to improve safety, reliability, and equity of transportation infrastructure in the Central City.

This first online open house uses an interactive mapping tool to let visitors identify and comment on priorities and challenges specific to pedestrian crossings, potential bikeways, and transit priority improvements. In addition, a brief survey provides an opportunity to share more detailed information on how, when and why people travel in the Central City, an area including downtown Portland, stretching from the West Hills to SE 12th Avenue, and from the Lloyd and Pearl districts to South Waterfront.

In addition to online engagement, PBOT has convened a Sounding Board to include a broad set of community and business perspectives in the project.

Sounding Board member Peter Andrews, of Melvin Mark Company shared, “I’m pleased to be part of this effort to shape the future of transportation in our Central City. I appreciate PBOT’s commitment to engaging as many people as possible in this effort and I look forward to hearing from my fellow Portlanders.”

With the assistance of Sounding Board members, PBOT is also convening focus groups and targeted surveys with residents at Central City Concern properties, members of the disability community, and hotel and service workers to better understand the varied needs of Portlanders who live and travel in the Central City.

The goal is to make the entire street system in the Central City work better, providing more predictable travel times for businesses and residents. A cultural and economic hub for the state, Portland’s Central City is growing rapidly. By 2035, the Central City’s population is projected to triple and the number of jobs area will increase by 40 percent. As the Central City and our economy grows, more people and businesses are using our existing streets, sidewalks and transit systems. To accommodate more users on our existing street system in a way that provides affordable transportation options, we need to invest in the Central City’s transportation network.

To learn more about the Central City in Motion project and to tell us what you need in the Central City, please visit the online open house at: